


The Best Medicine

by GrumpyJenn



Series: Side Stories [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Aww, Every Hospital Should Have a Little Shop, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 00:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the new River Song is left with the Sisters, but before she gets to Luna University</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Medicine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TygerTyger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TygerTyger/gifts), [beverlymaldoran](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=beverlymaldoran).



> Also dedicated to tardisjunkyard. Thanks for the beta

Mels had killed him.

And River had brought him back.

And now she lay in bed, attended by a nurse who looked like a cat, and all she wanted to do was sleep. She _craved_ sleep, as though she couldn’t get enough no matter how much she slept between the times the nurse (nurses? she was too tired to tell or care of there was more than one) checked on her.

And she was completely unaware of the times the Doctor checked on her.

Until she woke one day and caught a glimpse of his tweedy elbow as he left the room at something rather slower and tireder than his usual gawky lope, and she made a huge effort to speak. “Hello, Sweetie.” Her voice was harsh and rusty from disuse, but he froze and then slowly backed up so one eye was peering around the door frame at her lying limply in bed.

He hadn’t meant to wake her. He’d only meant to _look_ at her as he had at least twice a day (her time) in the week she’d been here, reassure himself that she would be alright, his ( _no, not his, not yet_ , he thought) beautiful and amazing River Song. But she was awake now, and he steeled himself and plastered on a smile before she could see his entire face. “Hi honey. I’m home.” _Dammit, Time Lord, she doesn’t know the joke!_

But apparently she did, either instinctively or otherwise, and he felt tears prick at his eyes as she made the response. “And what sort of time do you call this?” she said in that raspy voice, and smiled weakly at him. _Weakly_ , he thought sourly. _Weakly is not a word I want to associate with River Song. Not ever_. But he came fully into the room and picked up the carafe of water by the bed, helped her drink from the glass he poured it into, and when she was done drinking her smile was much stronger and her voice was too, though she still lay too limply for health. “Thank you, Sweetie,” she said simply, and he kissed her on the forehead as he put the glass away.

“Any time.” He smiled at her. “How are the Sisters treating you?”

“Could use some chocolate,” she mumbled, and fell asleep. He looked with concern at the nurse who bustled in

“‘Is that usual?

The nurse nodded, and some part of him marvelled that her wimple stayed on her head. It was a sort of a hat, he supposed, maybe he should... no, that was daft; he’d look silly in a nurse’s habit, what was he thinking, he... the nurse was talking, explaining that exhaustion of this magnitude could take several weeks to recover from and... “Where can I get chocolate?” he interrupted.

“There’s a little shop...” she started, looking taken aback, but he didn’t hear anything else as he went tearing out of the room. The chocolate in the little shop was rubbish. Like milk, the best chocolate in the universe came from Earth.  Maybe there was a connection; most chocolate had milk in it after all and...

The next time River woke up, she looked around the now-familiar room with a certain perplexity. “What...?” The nurse smiled in her feline way and patted River on the shoulder, then handed her a note and left the room.

_Wasn’t sure which you’d like, my River, so I got the lot._

_~The Doctor_

River Song, who had been too exhausted to move for days, laughed until she cried. Then she read the note again, and spotted the tiny arrow at the bottom of it. She turned the note over, and saw the circular Gallifreyan script, accompanied by the English translation in tiny printed letters: _It’s not fish fingers and custard, but it will have to do._ River laughed until her sides ached and although she was exhausted again afterward, she still felt better than she had since Berlin. She used her last remaining energy to apply some lipstick - not the poisonous kind - and pressed a kiss to the little note before she fell back into healing slumber.

The next time the Doctor saw her was only a day later for her, and there was no visible difference in the size of the piles of wrapped chocolate in her room.  But she was sitting up in bed, and there was colour in her cheeks, and she was licking the last melty bits of a Cadbury Dairy Milk from her fingers. She spotted him, gave him a saucy little wink, and popped the finger she was licking into her mouth, sucking lightly and watching him as he pulled a chair up to the bedside. His gaze was intent, as though he was trying to memorise her, or maybe he was gauging her reaction. She felt self-conscious all at once, swallowed hard and pulled her finger out of her mouth. “Thank you Sweetie,” she whispered, suddenly unable to tear her eyes away from his. She felt more than saw his hand tremble as he reached out to smooth her hair, and that was when she realised that his eyes, though intent on hers, were sheened with tears. She made an inarticulate sort of sound in the back of her throat and reached one hand out to him.

The Doctor let out a single sob and buried his face in her lap, his whole body shaking as she stroked his hair. They sat like this for a long time, and eventually he sniffled and sat up. “I...” he started, and stopped. River reached out to the back of his neck and pulled him to her, kissed him gently on the lips and laid her forehead on his. “I thought I’d lost you, my River,” he whispered, “When you’d only just become _you._ ” She nodded and kissed him again, more urgently this time, but soon she broke the kiss.

“You can’t stay, can you?” Her voice was tearful but steady.

“No.”

“Because you _didn’t_. And although time can be rewritten, we don’t want to rewrite our time together.”

He shook his head. “Not one line,” he said softly, his voice cracking on the last word.

It was his turn to kiss her, and then the nurse tried to shoo him away and he picked the little cat woman up and turned her around. “Five minutes,” he said, “and then I’ll leave your patient to you.” He turned back to River without checking to see what the nurse did, and kissed her goodbye, thoroughly but chastely. “Look for me,” he whispered into her ear, and she nodded.

And when the nurse bustled back into River’s room the Doctor was gone.

Weeks later on her own personal timeline, River Song smiled at the man across the table. “To be perfectly honest, Professor, I’m looking for a good man.”

 

 


End file.
